Thursday night saw the first in the Fab 5 series of races hosted by Lagan Valley AC at the
Mary Peter’s track. After a bight sunny day the evening turned out wet but the temperatures
remained mild with little wind so the running conditions were ok.

Adam Withers and Ollie Robinson lined up for the senior men’s 800m. Given it was the first
outdoor track event of the year many were using it to test their form and set a base line time
for the rest of the season. For Ollie this was a step up in distance and age category. He has
recently been running 200m and 400m but wanted to test himself in a slightly longer race.
Thirteen runners stood on the start line and given these numbers, instead of staying in lanes
for the first 100m, runners could cut in to the inside lane as soon as they liked. This made
the race quite congested from the start. Ollie pushed into the lead for the first 60m to get out
of trouble but then settled back into the pack to judge the pace. He did get quite crammed in
at points so found it a tricky race needing to run wide in places. Coming into the final bend
he was sitting in 6 th and about 10m off the leaders but put his 400m training into action and
sprinted to dip over the line in second place in 2.05.31. Adam also had a great race setting
a new personal best of 2.09.72 improving on his indoor 800m time which was set earlier in
the year. He settled will into the pack which kept fairly close for the first lap. He should be
pleased with his continuing improvements.